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Show HN: XY Music Notation

https://music.xy.dev/
14•jmole•1h ago
I've been playing around with a new kind of isomorphic music keyboard that uses a base-12 notation, and wanted some sheet music to learn some new music for it.

The idea is to represent each note in 12-TET as a number, so N ∈ (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,Y).

I used codex to build a music score rendering backend based on MuseScore with custom note heads that display the pitch class of each note.

I've found it pretty helpful for learning how to play my own instrument, so wanted to share in case anyone else was interested.

Comments

archonis•55m ago
Site is illegible on mobile.
jmole•32m ago
Sorry about that, it's fixed now.
bennettnate5•49m ago
It took me a while to understand what the numbers were actually trying to indicate (in part because I'm used to numbers in sheet music being suggestions of which finger should play the given note). If I understand correctly now, are you numbering zero-indexed with C as the beginning (0) and B as the end (Y), as a proxy for remembering which key notes are meant to be played in?
jmole•43m ago
That's right - so a major triad in C would be (0-4-7), or a B-flat minor triad would be (X-1-5).

It's not required that the pitch notation is absolute though, e.g. you can transpose the numeric notation to any key (e.g., use A == 0 instead of C ==0)

BalinKing•41m ago
What does "isomorphic" mean?
jmole•38m ago
Iso - same, morphic - shape.

Basically it uses a regular pattern of keys, instead of staggering keys into pentatonic and diatonic scales, like a piano does.

This makes it harder to "find" the diatonic scales, but easier to transpose between different keys.

You can see an example here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kMD1qXtDAdg

mrob•31m ago
It's also easier to learn because there's one consistent mapping between notes on the page and the sound, instead of many different irregular mappings specified by "key signatures".

But traditional notation is more compact, and for music based around diatonic scales, implies information about the harmonic function of notes that could be useful for interpretation.

skybrian•36m ago
I think you’d be better off with something compatible with an existing system. Perhaps start with nashville numbering and add accidentals?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Number_System

erelong•22m ago
relatedly does anyone have a tool to generate piano synthesia videos from sheet music, maybe with or without AI? They seem fun to play along with. (I'll just look it up, commenting to share the idea too though)
mrob•22m ago
I like the use of base 12, but IMO it's somewhat wasted on a diatonic staff. This is basically just traditional notation with special coloring to make it easier to read. To better match the keyboard, I'd rather use an isomorphic staff (a.k.a. "chromatic staff", although I dislike that name because it implies diatonic music as a default).

There's a web site you might be interested in with many examples of isomorphic notation at:

https://musicnotation.org/

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Show HN: XY Music Notation

https://music.xy.dev/
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